


The Last Goodbye

by Lobo_Loca



Category: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, Gen, Goodbyes, Light Angst, Melancholy, Nils stays a few months, background Eliwood/Ninian - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobo_Loca/pseuds/Lobo_Loca
Summary: Nils is happy Ninian's found love and happiness with Eliwood. Nils just wishes it didn't mean he has to say goodbye.





	The Last Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Bride!Ninian in FEH is beautiful and inspiring, and I have Feels about Nils & Ninian.

Squealing drew Nils out of his room and across the foyer to Ninian’s door. 

Happy, joyous squealing probably. Ninian had eagerly awaited this day after all, and Lyn was almost as excited, especially for the unveiling of Ninian’s gown. 

But Nils could feel the sword hanging above his and Ninian’s heads, inching closer the longer they stayed in Elibe, time slipping through their fingers like sand. 

That’s how it felt for Nils anyway.

He knocked on Ninian’s door.

The door cracked open and Lyn peered through the crack. Spotting Nils, she opened it wider. 

“Finally stopped pouting in your room, I see,” she said, leaning against the door frame.

“I wasn’t pouting,” Nils said.

“Sulking, then. Or brooding,” Lyn said.

“I was not.”

“Sure,” she said, skepticism dripping from the word. 

Lyn glanced back into the room, then stepped into the foyer, laying her hand on Nils’s shoulder. 

“I’ll give you two some alone time,” she said. “But do me a favor, Nils? For five minutes, at least pretend you’re happy Ninian’s marrying someone she loves.”

Lyn left Nils staring at the half-open door, nails biting into his palm.

He was happy for Ninian. She was his sun, and he would’ve done anything to see her shine so brightly and contently as wedding Eliwood. Even though Nils didn’t think Eliwood was remotely worthy of Ninian, he made Ninian happy. That mattered more than Nils’s opinion.

Mattered the most to Ninian too.

Nils took a deep breath, pushing down his feelings and stepping into the room.

Ninian turned from the mirror. She blinked at Nils. Surprise chased relief chased apprehension in her eyes and across her face. 

After a moment, she smiled. She used to favored him with smiles brighter than sun on snow, warm enough to melt glaciers. This was a small private quirk of her mouth, inviting but cautious, with a thin worried line between her eyebrows. The sort of smiles Ninian had worn when she first started dancing to pay their way.

“So, how do I look?” Ninian asked, standing.

Her veil had been attached just under her hair ribbons and trailed over her back nearly to the floor. The dress was white, as traditional of Elibe, and sleeveless with bronze trim along the hem, neckline, and the front panels of the skirt. She wore gloves, see-through fabric flaring around her biceps and solid white from her elbow down to her fingers. An orange slash was tied around her waist with dangling white-yellow oblong panels and two thinner fin-like frills on the sides.

She twirled, ribbons and veil and skirt flaring. The frills on her sash danced and swayed with the movement, and nostalgia tickled at Nils’s brain.  

Familiar, somehow, but not quite right.

Ninian faced him again, hands stilling the panels and frills of her sash.

_ Dragon frills,  _ Nils realized as he looked more closely. The oblong panels and the frills resembled the fins and frills of her dragon form.

A form she was abandoning. But maybe one she'd miss from time to time

(Maybe she'd miss him too.)

“Beautiful,” Nils choked out.

Reaching out, Ninian carefully dragged her knuckle under his eye. He didn't realize until he saw the moisture glistening on her glove that he'd started crying.

Nils scrambled to wipe away the tears, babbling, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to — I wanted to — you’re happy, the happiest I’ve ever seen — a-a-and I’m ruining it, aren’t I. Oh, gods, I’m ruining your wedding and the ceremony hasn’t even started. I’m sorry, gods, I’m sorry. I should go. I shouldn’t have stayed this long.”

Ninian shushed him gently, and pulled him into a hug. “I’m glad you stayed with me, that I get to share one of the happiest days of my life with you. Thank you for such a long goodbye.”

Nils sniffled, burying his face in her shoulder. “Be happy, okay? Be the happiest person in the world.”

“I am,” Ninian said. “Right now, with my brother beside me and about to marry to my fiancé, I’ve never been happier. And after you leave, I don’t think I’ll be as happy as I am now, because I’ll miss you. I’ll think of you. Whenever I hear music, when it snows, when I sing lullabies to my child that I used to sing to you, and when I tell them stories I used to tell you and stories about you; I’ll think of you and how much I love you and how much I miss you and how much I wish you could’ve stayed.”

“Godsdamnit, Ninian, I just stopped crying,” Nils complained wetly.

“You get to cry enough for both of us because Lyn will murder you if I ruin my makeup by crying,” Ninian told him. 

“And leave the Dragon Gate open? I think she’ll settle for bruised and bleeding.”

Ninian squeezed him and rested her cheek against his hair. “How soon are you leaving?”

“After the ceremony. Bags are already packed,” Nils said.

“So this is the last goodbye.”

Nils blinked back more tears and tried to remember how to breath past the lump in his throat. “Yeah.”

“As important as closing the gate is, take it slow. Please. For me,” Ninian said. “At least five hours of sleep and two meals a day.”

“Nin, I have nine hundred plus years on your husband-to-be,” Nils said, lifting his head and drawing away from Ninian. “I can take care of myself.”

Ninian gave him a look. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you actually will.”

Nils tried to give her a look back, hoping his agreement didn’t show on his face.

A knock broke the stalemate. 

Lyn poked her head. “So, is Nils still walking you down the aisle or are those lovely clothes of his getting some red accents?”

“And you people say dragons are the violent ones,” Nils muttered.

Ninian stifled a laugh, assuring Lyn, “No red accents needed.”

“Good, because we’re dangerously close to behind schedule as it is,” Lyn said.

Nils rolled his eyes and offered Ninian his arm.

“Once more unto the breach,” Nils said.

Her smile unfurled like a moonflower, shaking off sadness like dewdrops, and linked their arms together.

“Once more unto the breach,” she agreed.


End file.
